Related papers: Inapproximability of a Pair of Forms Defining a Pa…
Given a Boolean function f on n variables, a Disjoint Sum-of-Products (DSOP) of f is a set of products (ANDs) of subsets of literals whose sum (OR) equals f, such that no two products cover the same minterm of f. DSOP forms are a special…
We present two approximate versions of the proximal subgradient method for minimizing the sum of two convex functions (not necessarily differentiable). The algorithms involve, at each iteration, inexact evaluations of the proximal operator…
This paper studies a class of simple bilevel optimization problems where we minimize a composite convex function at the upper-level subject to a composite convex lower-level problem. Existing methods either provide asymptotic guarantees for…
Submodular functions describe a variety of discrete problems in machine learning, signal processing, and computer vision. However, minimizing submodular functions poses a number of algorithmic challenges. Recent work introduced an…
The Boolean Nearest Neighbor (BNN) representation of Boolean functions was recently introduced by Hajnal, Liu and Turan. A BNN representation of $f$ is a pair $(P,N)$ of sets of Boolean vectors (called positive and negative prototypes)…
We study the hardness of approximation of clause minimum and literal minimum representations of pure Horn functions in $n$ Boolean variables. We show that unless P=NP, it is not possible to approximate in polynomial time the minimum number…
Submodular functions are a fundamental object of study in combinatorial optimization, economics, machine learning, etc. and exhibit a rich combinatorial structure. Many subclasses of submodular functions have also been well studied and…
The number of quantifiers needed to express first-order (FO) properties is captured by two-player combinatorial games called multi-structural games. We analyze these games on binary strings with an ordering relation, using a technique we…
We study the approximation capabilities of two families of univariate polynomials that arise in applications of quantum signal processing. Although approximation only in the domain $[0,1]$ is physically desired, these polynomial families…
We show that for the problem of minimizing (or maximizing) the ratio of two supermodular functions, no bounded approximation ratio can be achieved via polynomial number of queries, if the two supermodular functions are both monotone…
Given a collection S of subsets of some set U, and M a subset of U, the set cover problem is to find the smallest subcollection C of S such that M is a subset of the union of the sets in C. While the general problem is NP-hard to solve,…
In this paper we introduce two conceptual algorithms for minimising abstract convex functions. Both algorithms rely on solving a proximal-type subproblem with an abstract Bregman distance based proximal term. We prove their convergence when…
We consider the task of locally correcting, and locally list-correcting, multivariate linear functions over the domain $\{0,1\}^n$ over arbitrary fields and more generally Abelian groups. Such functions form error-correcting codes of…
The minimization problem for propositional formulas is an important optimization problem in the second level of the polynomial hierarchy. In general, the problem is Sigma-2-complete under Turing reductions, but restricted versions are…
We investigate the strong convergence properties of a proximal-gradient inertial algorithm with two Tikhonov regularization terms in connection to the minimization problem of the sum of a convex lower semi-continuous function $f$ and a…
Approximations of non-smooth multivariate functions return low-order approximations in the vicinities of the singularities. Most prior works solve this problem for univariate functions. In this work we introduce a method for approximating…
A seminal result of H\r{a}stad [J. ACM, 48(4):798--859, 2001] shows that it is NP-hard to find an assignment that satisfies $\frac{1}{|G|}+\varepsilon$ fraction of the constraints of a given $k$-LIN instance over an abelian group, even if…
We present two novel methods for approximating minimizers of the abstract Rayleigh quotient $\Phi(u)/ \|u\|^p$. Here $\Phi$ is a strictly convex functional on a Banach space with norm $\|\cdot\|$, and $\Phi$ is assumed to be positively…
Horn functions form a subclass of Boolean functions and appear in many different areas of computer science and mathematics as a general tool to describe implications and dependencies. Finding minimum sized representations for such functions…
We propose to approximate a (possibly discontinuous) multivariate function f (x) on a compact set by the partial minimizer arg miny p(x, y) of an appropriate polynomial p whose construction can be cast in a univariate sum of squares (SOS)…